


Fly Agaric

by chaya



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-19 02:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15500778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: Set sometime after ep 29. Fjord's dealt with trauma through dreams for a long time, but things start shifting.





	1. Chapter 1

Clay towers over him, looming, calm and gentle. Fjord, not himself to start with, burns his way through fever dreams that keep changing shape.

**

The bars and the heated metal fade away into dust. Clay is large, massive, reclining in silt and pleased that Fjord is sprawled out on top of him. When Clay breathes in, his chest and belly rise up, Fjord with them. Fjord presses his cheek to the furred skin, breathes in too, and smells the hint of fungus and seaweed.

When he’s awake, Clay never looks at him with tension or concern. Clay has never seen a version of Fjord that doesn’t involve this latent paranoia, this inability to walk into open spaces without a spike of fear striking up his back. Clay isn’t trying to  _fix_  him.

When he’s asleep, Fjord lays prone across Clay’s body, arm dangling off the side of the other man. The tide rises just enough to brush against Fjord’s fingertips. The water is ice cold and warm and inviting in turns.

In the day, Clay is even-keeled, unassuming, pleased to help and unconcerned by what seems to plague everyone else. Nott’s goblin features. Fjord’s orc blood. Jester’s demonic appearance.

(Not so different from Molly’s. Not so different from.

Fjord never did get to say goodbye.)

When he dreams of the screaming and the rasping voices of those who have stopped trying to beg, the sounds merge and blend into the sound of waves against the hull, of the water in his ears, surrounding him, almost drowning him, of the vision of a large fixed eye. In his mind, he seeks solace on the shore.

In these dreams, Clay is - Fjord understand what dreams are, what they aren’t, Clay is a  _thing_ , here, not a person, he’s large and warm and safe and he keeps Fjord near the water but out of it.

Fjord’s flesh shifts to pink, his claws receding, and Clay still strokes his back and lets him rest on top of him. Fjord’s teeth grow in, longer than ever, his claws push through his fingertips, his muscles bulk, and Clay doesn’t notice or care. When Fjord’s body shifts back to the space between, and he feels like he can breathe again, Clay smiles patiently. He seems to understand that how Fjord looks is important to him. Clay himself doesn’t care. He asks about the sea and the ships that glide across it, that struggle through it, that fall beneath it. Fjord tells him everything he can think of, until the smell of the hob and the crackle of the early morning campfire brings him back to land.


	2. Chapter 2

Jester hates to be alone. She refuses to let Yasha leave for any reason, even briefly, and when Yasha finally snaps that she’s not a child, Jester’s eyes well up immediately, and it’s a scene. Outside of a tannery. Caleb looks away in embarrassment. Caduceus tilts his head, frowning. Beau walks over and touches Jester’s shoulder. She’s hunched up and shaking.

Yasha is so much more upset than Fjord expected her to be - Yasha’s looks as if she’s realized she just  _struck_  Jester, not raised her voice at her. Yasha trudges toward the center of town - the bar. She’s going to the bar.

“We’ve got Jester,” Nott says at Fjord’s hip. Fjord looks over to Beau kneeling on the ground next to Jester, talking to her softly. “Can you-”

“Yeah,” Fjord says, and heads for the bar.

**

Yasha isn’t inside, isn’t in the rooms. Fjord thinks about it for a while and then goes around back, to the stables, which are only partially shaded. Yasha doesn’t care that it smells like animals - she’s sitting and looking up at the sky, perfectly still.

Fjord sits next to her.

“She’s scared of us getting separated again,” Yasha says, after a few minutes. Fjord is so surprised that she’s spoken that it takes a few minutes to realize what she said.

“You didn’t do wrong by her. She’s just emotional.”

“I still feel awful for hurting her.”

“She knows you didn’t mean to.”

Yasha looks down at the bandages on her hands. There’s still a long dark scar along her forearm that she got when Fjord was in another room.

“Yasha.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

“I miss him.” It’s sudden, much quieter. Fjord feels a blanket of ice fall over him, seep into his flesh and down into his guts.

**

When they meet up for dinner in the inn, Fjord and Yasha smell like shit and hay, but nobody comments. Jester doesn’t say anything, but in the middle of a discussion between Beau and Caleb, she pushes several slices of her fish onto Yasha’s plate. Yasha eats them slowly, pushes some of her roasted potato slices over to Jester’s plate, and they both seem to be sorry and they both seem to forgive. Fjord looks down at his ale and breathes in the familiar smell of it.

**

When they’re out of the cities, Clay gathers leaves and blooms and little mushrooms hiding in the bulging knots of old trees. When they rest, he pulls out a small mortar and pestle, mixing together this and that and grinding it into pastes, into powders, into little remedies and, every night, a tea. He makes stronger teas on the nights when they’re safe - something ‘soporific’ that helps you find sleep and hold onto it.

Clay used most of his first cut to buy more little mugs.

One night, as they’re safe in an abandoned keep with a bar across the doors, Fjord sits by the hob and watches Clay hand out the teas to everyone in turn. By the time the Iron Shepherds were killed, it seemed like Caleb and Nott and Beau accepted such gifts out of politeness; they were grateful that he was there, that he was helping, that he didn’t know anyone and risked himself anyway. Now, they all take it out of habit, and varying levels of enjoyment. Jester likes the first flavor, but not the aftertaste. Beau says she’s growing to like it and crave it during the day.

Fjord is a little fascinated by how it’s never exactly the same twice - some days they walk through a glen and Clay finds little blue petals that turn white at the tips, and that makes it into the brew. Other days they walk through cities and Clay pulls out old, dried leaves that crumple in his hands and make the water smell like spiced honey. But there’s always some key ingredients, the stem of this fungus and the dried root of something Fjord can’t name, and those are what make the earthy taste, a little like soil, with spices and flashes of something strange and smooth that sits at the back of his tongue. Fjord watches Clay hand out the cups, not serving Fjord just yet, and when Nott’s taken her cup Clay adds a little more of this and that to the pot, stirring, letting the next cups steep a while before calling over Yasha and Jester. They take theirs. Clay hands the last one to Fjord.

“You always serve us last,” Fjord comments.

Clay smiles a little. “So I can put an extra kick at the end of the pot, and make sure you three get some real rest.”

Fjord sits up a little straighter. “You’re dosing us?”

“Nothing like that. It’s just a bit stronger than what I serve everyone else.” The man bends over the hob, enormous and slow-moving, eyes pink and red and orange in the firelight. “Back before I joined this group, I’d serve it a lot to guests. Most people only came to see me if they were at their wit’s end.”

“Like us,” Fjord says pointedly, not really arguing but sour about the comparison anyway.

Clay shrugs his shoulders, fabrics shifting across his arms and back. Not for the first time, Fjord is distracted by the long translucent sleeve of fabric that looks like webbed silk. “Everyone is grieving. You three are balancing the grief with your own recent experiences. Sleep is important. You do a lot of work when you sleep.”

Fjord looks into the fire and thinks about it. “Does the tea make us dream?”

“The tea makes you sleep. Good sleep leads to dreams. So, indirectly.”

Clay doesn’t seem like the type to drug his friends or sneakily insert himself into their thoughts. If Fjord’s dreams have taken some strange turns, that’s probably on Fjord. And he should be glad he’s not vomiting up sea water.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Fjord’s pulled out of his reverie. “Sure,” he says, reluctantly unguarded.

“Who takes care of you?”

“I’m… not sure how to answer a question like that.”

Clay smiles and looks down, amused. “I guess it’s not a very normal question,” he agrees, and leans back a little. Under the layers of soft clothing he’s lean, wiry, and something about combined with his height makes Fjord curious and drawn all at once. “Earlier this week, Jester and Yasha both got upset. Some people took care of Jester. You went and took care of Yasha. So when you get upset…?”

Fjord feels… something. Exposed. Indignant. “You think I look upset?”

Clay holds up a hand. “Everyone does sometimes. Especially after what you went through.”

He can’t have this conversation. “Pretty confident in your ability to fix things, huh?”

“Fix,” Clay says, and tilts his head like he’s trying the word out for size. In spite of Fjord’s tone, he doesn’t seem to be either backing up or stubbornly standing his ground on this. Just. “Fix. I don’t know if that word’s a good fit for people. We aren’t teacups.”

“Well, I’m fine, no matter what word you’d prefer. Thanks.”

**

In that night’s dream, the shore rolls smooth over time-worn rocks. Not a grain of sand in sight. Clay lays on his back as always, a soft and warm respite for Fjord to lay upon. The stars above are bright and unfamiliar.


End file.
